This one’s a phrase, but we hope you’ll let it count: the North Island. Most people, especially New Zealanders, would be familiar with this term to describe the North Island of New Zealand. But, in Australia, particularly in Tasmania, this is an ironic nickname for the Australian mainland.
We received a couple of examples during our Australian Word Map project, one of which explains:
A Tasmanian shopkeeper’s reply to me when I said I was from Melbourne: ‘Oh, you’re from the North Island’. This was in the eighties and I’ve never heard it used on any later visits to Tasmania.
Other ways Tasmanians refer to mainland Australia include the ‘Big Island‘ and the ‘other side.’ The latter is a colloquial term used by Australians when referring to any part of the world opposed to the place occupied by the speaker. For example, Victoria is on the ‘other side‘ to someone in Tasmania.
There are 400 Tasmanian regionalisms recorded on our Australian Word Map. Be sure to read up before your next visit to the Apple Isle.
